


FEF Soulmates: ink, modern AU

by TheDragonLover



Series: the abandoned works [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:14:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22686058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDragonLover/pseuds/TheDragonLover
Summary: The first time Margaret drew on her arm, she was home alone, and lonely. The second time, she was told to stop. The pen washed off easily, but as expected the sharpie was more difficult to erase. The words sat beneath long sleeves for several days. She didn't replace them once they were gone.Several years passed. Many things changed. When she was fifteen, Maggie—as she preferred to be called now, to avoid memories—scribbled some notes onto her arm. She stopped, and stared at the list of herbs."...is magic...reallyreal?""In many forms," Aunt Aspen confirmed. She clasped her adopted niece's hand, twining their fingers together. "It's in our blood... our breath... our skin."--Abandoned/unfinished FEF soulmate/modern AU with implied OC x Canon ships, where anything you write on your arm appears on your soulmate's. Would've been a fairly slice-of-life fic set in high school and beyond.
Series: the abandoned works [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1631926
Kudos: 1





	FEF Soulmates: ink, modern AU

**Author's Note:**

> An old idea from around 2017
> 
> I never got around to writing more or even just wrapping this idea up, but it was too charming to just delete, so read and enjoy what I have.

.

The first time Margaret drew on her arm, she was home alone, and lonely.

There were plenty of newspapers and old receipts for her to scribble on, but that included venturing into the rest of the house. A large _bang_ outside had convinced her that the safest place to be right now was beneath her covers. It was pitch black in there, but she had a flashlight to see by. Wielding that and one of her father's pens, she set to work on using her arm as a canvas to keep her calm.

The night sky was supposed to have pictures, right? A book she had read once in school mentioned something called "constellations." People looked at the bright dots up there and pretended lines connected some of them, telling stories based on the pictures they drew. She only knew about the Big Dipper because the main character had used it to find her way home, but she didn't know what a "dipper" was supposed to look like. So she made her own constellations, of animals real and imaginary and of the heroes who saved everyone in all of her books. She wasn't much of an artist, but it didn't really matter when she was going to be the only one to see this. Whenever Father left home, he never got back before she went to sleep.

Her arm was very quickly covered by her imagination, which was when she started to realize that maybe this hadn't been such a good idea. She poked her head out of her hiding place, looking to the shirt she'd abandoned on the floor in favor of her pajamas. It had longer sleeves to hide and protect the constellations.

_But it's so far away..._

A foot dangled over the edge of her bed... and was quickly brought back and away from the shadows trying to snatch her. She fumbled with her flashlight, but it had moved by the time she brought the protective beam to bear on this invader.

Was she not safe here, after all?

Something scratched her arm.

Screaming, Margaret threw the flashlight and darted across the room and into her closet. The door slammed shut behind her, and she immediately regretted it when the darkness consumed her. Something was crawling up her arm, and she tried wiping it away to no avail. She curled up in the corner as she cried, wishing she had someone to save her from the monsters.

Her father found her in the closet early that morning, scolding her for giving him a scare and wasting ink to doodle on her skin. As he told her to go wash up, she turned her arm over and found some pictures she hadn't remembered drawing, and was hit by a strange thought.

_What if the monsters... are lonely too?_

.

None of them talked to her.

That is to say, Margaret waited until her father had gone to bed or, what happened more often, left the house before she would talk to the monsters in her room. She tried being quiet, nice, loud and rude, but nothing she did or said would get them to play with her. She doodled a heart on her palm, but they didn't add to it. She offered them Mr. Dog, her stuffed toy, but they didn't accept it. She even tried to sing a song once but stopped when an angry dog started a ruckus outside. Or was that the monsters telling her to leave them alone?

When she tried asking her father about monsters, he told her they didn't exist before going out the front door. That night, she went to bed without a word, crying silently.

With more and more time spent alone, Margaret was getting rather used to the silence within the house and the noises without. She didn't find the hallways scary anymore—not even when every light was out and the shadows tried to nibble on her toes. As she grew up, she finally admitted to herself that monsters weren't real... and neither were heroes, or magic. It was all just stories. She still loved them, but she stopped trying to talk to empty walls.

The loneliness felt as heavy as a pillow over her face.

Back to her blanket sanctuary once more, the brunette took a sharpie to her fingers, outlining the digits and filling in the creases. It could have looked sinister in the dim light of her torch, but to her it was just lines and dots. There was nothing special about them now. She wrote nonsense along her wrist, then down the inside of her arm, and then around the crook of her elbow—words that often flitted through her mind during the countless hours she spent alone at home.

Would the teachers yell at her tomorrow, like her father had? Only time would tell.

" _Lonely,_ " she wrote. Then she corrected, " _I am lonely._ "

She swiped at her tears, skin scratching across skin.

Sniffling, she rubbed at her itchy arm as she pulled the blanket off of her head. The curtains were still drawn, but a bit of moonlight crept in to illuminate the floor where her dog plush sat. He looked lonely, too.

_...no. He's just a toy. He's not real. IT'S not real._

Her arm continued to itch.

Glancing down, she went to wipe at a smudge she'd left before she realized it was moving. No, it was _growing._ That smudge was actually a line, and it grew longer and curved to become something new as her skin tingled from an invisible pen.

She held her arm out to keep the phenomena as far away as possible, wet eyes wide with shock and fear.

"H-hello?" she called out, voice trembling.

But nobody answered her, and the line kept moving. And then it stopped.

Heart pounding, she turned her arm over, finding a few new words had been added to her list. " _Stop_ " on the back of her hand. " _Who are you_ " beneath her elbow.

She dug through her blanket for the sharpie, losing the cap in the process.

" _Margaret,_ " she began on the back of her wrist. This took up a lot of space, so she had to wrap her own question around it. " _Are you a monster?_ "

They were finally talking to her. They were _talking_ to her! She wasn't alone!

An exclamation point was drawn beside the new word on her hand. "Ow!" It felt like a pen was digging into the dot of the punctuation.

" _Monsters aren't real,_ " came the answer.

That stumped her. If this wasn't from the monsters she had been trying to talk to, then who was writing on her arm? If anyone else was in her room, then she should see them... and the only explanation she'd had for invisible people was dismissed by the entity itself.

" _Magic?_ " she asked beneath that.

" _No,_ " was the quick reply. Before she could ask another question, it added, " _Sharpie stains._ "

Glancing at her bed sheets, she realized the mess she had made with her fumbling. Her father wasn't going to be happy about this.

" _All I have,_ " she wrote along the top of her arm. Something invisible jabbed there almost before she had finished. "OW," she repeated aloud.

Slowly, a line crossed out her reply.

" _SHUT UP._ "

Margaret gasped. They were angry? Maybe the monster—or whatever it was—didn't like sharpies. But she really didn't have anything else in her bedroom. Tears pricking her eyes, she got out of bed. It took some time to track a pen down, but it was easy to traverse the house in the dark now. So in-tune with her surroundings, she didn't even need to dry her tears, able to make out the important things through the blur. Using the light coming in from the front window—the curtain rod was busted—she scribbled an apology beneath her questions and went to bed.

The pen washed off easily, but as expected the sharpie was more difficult to erase. The words sat beneath long sleeves for several days.

She didn't replace them once they were gone.

.

Several years passed.

Many things changed.

The house became scary again, causing her to sneak out and find safer hiding places. But not because of monsters. No, those weren't real, and the things that she'd once thought were monsters hadn't done anything scary. What frightened Margaret now was very real, indeed. It was the noises of people furiously banging on the front door, demanding payment; the shady people in dark cars that her father would associate with; and the things he would teach her, that went against everything the heroes she admired in her books stood for.

_No one can be trusted. You have to look out for yourself. Take what you want. The world is cruel._

The day she argued too much, he locked her in her bedroom for a timeout. After an hour of banging on the door begging to be let out, Margaret slid down to the floor and continued sobbing quietly.

By the next morning, she was a miserable, disgusting mess, the front door hadn't opened again, and she needed to get out of there. It was Saturday, so the likelihood of him being gone all weekend and forgetting her there was another real fear.

She was so weak, but she managed to shift her dresser enough to squeeze her tiny frame behind it, to get at the window it had blocked. Her fingers were raw and bleeding by the time she managed to wrench it open. She climbed through it and tumbled to the ground with a cry, banging her elbow against the lawnmower. From the looks of the long grass in their backyard, her father had never used it.

Everything in her deflated, seeing a yard as neglected by the man as her. Her head fell into her hands, and she bawled.

He found her out there, when the sun was peeking over their roof. Next time, he locked her in a closet for a few hours. When she was let out, she was sent to her room with a newly barred window, and she took an angry pen to her arm, monsters or entities be damned. " _I hate him,_ " she wrote, over and over, tears smearing the ink onto her right arm. Lines crossed the words out on occasion, but they didn't write back.

And then, the summer she turned twelve, she was taken out of that house, and she was never locked up again.

.

When she was fifteen, Maggie—as she preferred to be called now, to avoid memories—scribbled some notes onto her arm.

She stopped, and stared at the list of herbs.

"It will be strange," Aunt Aspen was saying. She wasn't really a relation, but was a part of the new household Maggie found herself in. It had taken a while to get used to the change, but now she was almost comfortable calling them family. The woman went on, "But once you get settled into your classes and start making friends, I guarantee it'll be an experience worth the beginning awkwardness."

"...yes, ma'am."

"...Maggie?" Fingers delicately touched the arm she was staring at, bringing her attention back. "What's the matter?"

The brunette wet her lips, considering.

This family of women—three sisters—lived towards the edge of town, where nature was literally in their backyard. There were plenty of trees to climb and creeks to toss rocks into, and the witches all claimed that magic was alive in the air. After years of harsh lessons and reality, Maggie had been so skeptical of their way of life at first. _Monsters aren't real. Magic isn't real._ Yet they encouraged her to read their books and learn their craft, and now that she felt like she could start opening up to them...

"...is magic... _really_ real?"

"In many forms," Aunt Aspen confirmed. She clasped her adopted niece's hand, twining their fingers together. "It's in our blood... our breath... our skin."

"Skin..." She was so close to believing it. She _wanted_ to believe it. Little Margaret had wanted a friend, all alone in her dark room. And Maggie wanted to rekindle the sparks of imagination that had once convinced her to use her arm as a canvas and talk to shadows.

Aunt Aspen interrupted her thoughts with a soft giggle. "Look," she pressed, lifting the hand she held captive to the girl's face. "This is magic at work."

Maggie frowned, but a vaguely familiar sensation had her attention snapping to her arm and the curling lines that were appearing there. The entity was back; it had been _years_ since she'd given more than a passing thought to it, and yet here it was as if it had followed her from her old house. The handwriting was so much neater than her own, swerving up and down and diagonally to finish the word, " _Herbs?_ "

"Calm down," the woman told her, other hand on her shoulder. She hadn't realized she was starting to hyperventilate.

Panicked and elated, she breathed, "What _is_ this?"

"As I said, it's magic." Aunt Aspen traced a finger up her own arm, from wrist to pit. "Somewhere, there is a person with a pen, reading your list and wondering what it's for. I'm surprised you've never heard of this, it's common even in normal society."

"I..." Maggie ducked her head. "I've... never heard of this."

"Really? I had thought..." Trailing off, the witch shook her head. She moved right along. "It's ancient magic that lives on even in this modern world. The ink on your skin is said to appear in the same place on a person that could be your soulmate."

"W-what?" Maggie's gaze danced between her aunt and her arm, panic swallowing the excitement of discovering very real magic whole. "What do you mean, s-soulmate?"

Aunt Aspen saw the fear clamoring in the girl's chest and brought her to the living room, declaring she'd return with tea. It was a very tense few minutes that Maggie sat there, staring at the ink staining her arm. _I think I'm going to be sick..._ Once the woman had returned, she poured each of them a cup and sat to her left, grasping that arm and turning it over.

"Don't be afraid."

Maggie turned her head away, swallowing.

The witch traced the words carefully, voice lowering as if imparting a secret. "I've actually never experienced this, myself. I wrote and wrote, but I never got my reply." She huffed, adding, "Anise was rather childish back then and taunted me about it. _She_ got pictures and words." Maggie's hand was placed like fine china back on her lap. "The term "soulmate" can be a bit misleading. You are not a half to only be whole once you've found a soulmate. It simply means that, out there, there is someone who you have a deep connection with."

Slowly, Maggie returned her gaze to the list, reading down until the word " _herbs_ " stared back. It was such delicate handwriting. "It's... I'm not forced to...?"

"It's an option," Aunt Aspen promised, clasping her fingers once more. "It's not an ultimatum." The brunette blinked as something occurred to her, but the question in her expression was answered before she could even voice it. "After all, Anise decided not to stay with her soulmate."

"Why not?"

"Her reasons are her own." Tapping the girl's palm, Aunt Aspen advised, "Learn more about the world, and yourself, before you try to make such life-changing decisions as choosing your soulmate. That is only one piece of the puzzle, after all."

"Yes, ma'am," came the automatic response. She finally sipped the tea, a sweet and flowery aroma on her tongue. "Thank you for the tea."

"You're welcome, child. Now." With a leg-pat, her aunt was on her feet to pour through the bookshelf across the room. "You should find your notebook, unless you wish to teach your new friend all about herbology."

Maggie glanced at her arm, considering, then did as was suggested.

Beneath the question on her wrist, she replied with a simple, " _Yes._ "

.

" _Auditourium 3._ "

Maggie considered the strange (and misspelled) message on the back of her palm as she avoided eye contact with the other students.

Getting out of home school and going to a public one was terrifying, after a few years away from society. She had found peace in her new home in the woods, and before she'd found it... she hadn't known peace anywhere. She couldn't meet anyone's gazes, and the role call in her first class had almost had her marked absent because she had trouble speaking up. So far, it was even more awkward than her second aunt had told her. _My stomach is tying itself into witches' knots._ So she turned her focus to something else.

Rolling the pen in her hand, she thought about what she had learned about this "ink magic." So far, most of the things her aunts had taught her didn't directly influence the world like magic in her old books had. It was a far subtler thing, where the caster asked politely and offered tribute to whoever would listen and waited patiently for the changes to slide into place. It wasn't meant to lead to immediate gratification, but to "grease the palms" of the universe. A prayer, not a contract. After all, the universe could refuse. But this... this was very obviously an incredibly real source of magic that caused physical change in an instant.

 _Thank goodness Aunt Bella tossed me my jacket._ If anyone had pointed out ink materializing on her arms, Maggie would have died of embarrassment. _Long sleeves are a blessing._

The bell rang, and her eyes were glued to the school map as she stood outside of the classroom. Where was she supposed to go now? A student bumped into her, and she apologized without meeting the stranger's gaze. He merely grunted before moving on, and she peeked at the back of the surly redhead before attempting to decipher her schedule. The room numbers were very tiny. "207B," she mumbled to no one. That was her next class. Deciding her soulmate would have to live with extra notes, she scribbled the rest of her day's destinations on the inside of her wrist and set off.

She barely slid into an empty seat before the bell rang, and she kept her eyes on the pen she twiddled with while the teacher went on about what to expect for the year's syllabus. _Still no friends,_ she lamented, although she knew it was her own fault. As Aunt Anise had told her, friendship was a two-way street.

That first note sat, almost mocking her.

Furrowing her brow, Maggie finally took her pen and crossed out the word. " _Auditorium,_ " she corrected, glad for the cloak of anonymity.

Minutes ticked by as she dutifully scribbled in the margins of the teacher's pamphlet, already preparing for the lecture her oldest aunt would give before organizing a study schedule. She used her multi-color pen to signify particular dates, circling and underlining the areas she knew she'd have trouble in. _Maybe Aunt Aspen can help me with the equations—_

She nearly jumped in her seat as her hand tingled.

" _Whatever,_ " said the mysterious person on the other side of this magic, the person supposedly able to hold a deep connection with her.

_Just my luck._

When Maggie returned home that afternoon and was talking to her family about her first day, the second aunt stopped her to lift the ink-stained arm up in display. "Is this your handwriting," she asked, voice odd.

"This is," the brunette told her, pointing to the particular words. When this didn't seem to answer anything, she ventured, "Is... something wrong?"

"No, nothing, it's just..." After an awkward pause, Aunt Aspen finally put her arm down with a laugh. "Sorry. I'm glad you're taking this in stride." Skin wrinkled as she smiled, pointing out, "You were so skeptical of magic when you first got here."

Rubbing at the ink, Maggie admitted, "It was a lot to take in, but... I'm adjusting."

"Just remember," the woman stressed, still clasping that arm, "that you have _options._ Life isn't set in stone, no matter what the ink tells you."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Don't _scare_ the girl," Aunt Bella joked, reaching over to ruffle her niece's hair. This elicited an indignant squeak that made her laugh. "She still has a lot to learn!"

The oldest, Aunt Anise, cleared her throat. "Speaking of learning..."

That night, as they all pitched in for dinner, Maggie squinted at the two words her soulmate had left on her skin and wondered what had happened to their pretty handwriting.

.

Next week, Maggie found another word that she hadn't put on the back of her palm.

" _Magnanamous._ "

She frowned, changing it to " _magnanimous,_ " and waited. Nothing else appeared.

Odd.

.

Seeing as her soulmate didn't act so touchy about her writing on her own skin anymore, Maggie felt she was free to use her arm as she pleased. When she finished tests early, she put the occasional doodle on her hand, and she often put her reading assignments down the inside of her arm when she didn't have time to pull out her planner.

In response, her arm was often littered with words or scribbled out doodles, as the mystery person could only take so much. School-related notes were fine, but often any drawings on the back of her arm would develop smudges to hide the sillier images. When their pen dug in too deeply, it drew tears.

" _That hurts,_ " she told them.

They didn't respond, but she noticed further ink was written more carefully. Her " _thanks_ " was ignored as well.

One day, a scientific equation appeared that she couldn't make heads or tails of. She ended up using the other side of her arm to slowly dissect it, separating the letters from numbers to figure out what elements they were and what was missing. _I wonder what textbook this is from?_ It wasn't a part of her schoolwork, but now that it was there she had to solve it.

As she chewed on the pen cap, the appearance of new lines startled her out of deep concentration. After a few corrections, she was left with shorthand that read: " _The specific elements don't matter. Balance the numbers._ "

Blinking, she considered the original equation on the back of her hand. _Just balance the numbers, huh?_ With that in mind, it was much easier; she crossed out one, added two more, and felt like she had solved a rubix cube with a little nudge in the right direction.

A few strokes of a pen spelled out " _thanks_ " below it.

She stared some more.

" "Thanks"...?"

Why would someone give her an equation, help her break it down and solve it, and then thank her for it afterwards? Turning her arm over and back again, she was in the middle of wondering what the hell was going on when she made her big discovery. She later barreled into the front door of her house, shouting for her aunts. When asked what was wrong, she offered her arm and exclaimed, "There's _two_ of them!"

Aunt Aspen looked satisfied.

"Didn't I say you had _options,_ child?"

.

Maggie was a little miffed that her aunt had figured it out before she had. It was on _her arm,_ after all. But it was only when she thought to compare the two sets of handwriting that she realized two different hands were leaving these notes: Sharp scribbling on the back, careful lines on the inside. If what she'd been told was true, this meant that her soul had at least _two_ possibilities for deep connections to form.

(Curious, she used her offhand to scribble on her dominant one, but her only answer came when she wrote on the underside of it, where the elegant-one asked what was up with the chicken scratch. So they were ambidextrous?)

Although she had this newfound knowledge, she was still rather frightened by the idea of soulmates. It sounded like such an intimate thing. There were people who would be let into places she hadn't let anyone into before; even her new family still had to guess at some things, regardless of how truly at home she felt with them. She was a very withdrawn, private person. How could she ever be comfortable with that?

Sitting outside in the twilight, she fiddled with a pen as she asked the universe, "What am I supposed to do...?" The wind didn't give her an answer, but it helped calm the whirling thoughts when she thought to listen to how it tickled the trees. She traced leafy patterns on her arm with a nail, wondering if they could feel that too. (They couldn't.)

Her family had suggested going on as normal, but that was difficult to do when you knew that someone else's skin was a pen stroke away—when _they_ wrote to _you._ The elegant one hadn't asked further about the herbs, and the back of her hand was used solely for schoolwork, but what was to stop that from changing? What if something began digging into her skin at a pivotal moment? What if something happened, and she never heard from them again? They were a part of her, whether she had chosen them to be or not. Not knowing was driving her _mad._

The forest was dark, but she could feel when a pen skated across her skin. Bringing up her old weapon—the shadow-combating flashlight—Maggie watched as, ever so slowly, the back of her hand read, " _Sorry for being a jerk._ "

The pen rolled between her fingers for a few breathless moments. This was the first time either of them had ever initiated an actual conversation with her. Nervousness fled when she realized that, even though she received the message, she was still alone in these woods. No one was staring at her. Maggie took a deep breath, and uncapped her pen. " _It's okay._ " She refrained from introducing herself, too paranoid despite her want to connect with someone, but she couldn't leave it at that. Compromising, she offered, " _Call me M._ "

Holding her breath wasn't entirely necessary, yet she was close to gasping for air before she felt the press of a returning pen.

" _T._ "

That one letter made her smile so widely it felt like her face was splitting. But the rush of a secret being entrusted to her was too thrilling to ignore, and she couldn't help dancing with the fae that evening. She returned to her bed, ready for sleep, and left a small " _good night_ " for T.

Her arm still found itself littered with notes, and the next time she found careful words on the inside of her wrist she realized she needed to extend the same courtesy to the other mystery individual. _But how to go about it? It was so much easier because T talked to me first._ Chewing on the cap, she eventually scribbled a shy " _hello_ " with the desperate hope that she wasn't bothering this person either.

" _Can I help you,_ " came the eventual response.

So she _was_ bothering them. She was going to need a new pen by the end of class, or at least a new cap. It was a good thing no one paid her much mind in this period, or she'd have to weather inquiries on her unhealthy obsession with writing on her arms. Although, if this was truly as common as her aunts had claimed, surely they would understand...? She hadn't talked with anybody here more than required, not even the teachers, so as far as she knew _everyone_ could have a soulmate or two to chat with.

Taking care to write small and neat, Maggie told the other, " _Sorry. Wanted to introduce myself properly. M._ "

Class continued on for a bit. She had to focus on not tapping her pen on her desk and annoying other students.

Slowly, a circle appeared around her " _properly,_ " and then " _M,_ " followed by a question mark. No one was looking at her, but her ears burned as she ducked her head. Too embarrassed and too cautious to respond, she wet her thumb and scrubbed her writing away. Dismay hit when their lines remained. She yanked her sleeve as far as it would go and tried to ignore the urge to cry.

 _Keep it together,_ she scolded herself. _Stupid, don't cry over someone you don't even know!_

Another class passed in silence on her part, and then she was off to lunch. As hers was always packed thanks to her three aunts, she took to the corner outside of the cafeteria and pulled out her homework to finish it early. Today was a special day for the witchy household, as Maggie would finally be shaping a branch that had been drying out for months into her own set of runes. She didn't believe much in divination, but she knew that if the universe would listen to her prayers that it had good advice to pass along. She didn't want anything else to distract her.

As soon as her pen was scribbling across her notebook, however, a pair of feet encroached on her peripherals. "U-um... e...excuse me..."

Maggie tried to calm her racing heart. _It's just a person,_ she warred with her anxiety. _Same as you. Nothing to be afraid of._ Yet she couldn't manage to look up, only offering a choked, "Y-yes?"

The feet shuffled. "You... you d-dropped this..."

Well, now she _had_ to look. Steeling herself, she tilted her head up and briefly met eyes filled with as much trepidation as hers, if not more. The girl was soft in every definition of the word: Soft-eyed, soft spoken, soft-hearted. In her trembling fingers was a familiar leather journal.

"Ah...!" Maggie met the girl's eyes again, for a longer instant. "Th-that's..." It was full of her notes for witch lore, herbology and spells. Against her aunts' advice, she had brought it to school everyday, for comfort. But the thought of someone reading through those notes and thinking her strange had her cheeks and eyes burning. Clearing her throat, she managed a quiet, "Thanks..."

The girl's pink hair bobbed at the edge of Maggie's vision when she crouched slightly to hand over the journal. Then she straightened her spine, mumbling a soft apology... and stood there as the awkward silence grew.

 _I don't know what to do._ She had already thanked the girl. Was there something else she was supposed to do? _Why didn't I interact with more people and develop these much needed social skills?_ She didn't want to be rude and go back to her work, but the thought of meeting the girl's gaze and saying anything else kicked her heart into overdrive. How was she supposed to make friends when even _this_ terrified her?

"Sakura!"

Both of them jumped and squeaked. Adrenaline still racing through her veins, Maggie took this opportunity to ignore the pounding heart and look at the girl again. She was glancing over her shoulder—at someone, a male student, hair much longer and lighter than hers—her face just as red as the brunette's. Suddenly the girls' eyes met again, and after a stuttered attempt the stranger bowed violently with a rushed "sorry to bother you," and then ran off. Something clattered to the ground.

Looking down, Maggie noticed a ribbon on the ground by her feet. _It must have fell off when she beat that hasty retreat._ Now that the "danger" was over, she felt a bit silly about her behavior, especially since she had recognized the other student was just as terrified with talking to strangers as she was. _An opportunity to try to make a new friend... lost._ Aunt Anise would've been disappointed. Leaning over while avoiding to get up was a challenge, one that was moot once Maggie realized she needed to do so if she wanted to get the belonging back to its proper owner.

The brunette took too long to decide, and so she glanced about the pavilion to confirm that the girl was long gone. Second chance, lost to the wind. She was so angry with herself. How many chances was the universe going to give her before it gave up on her?

Head down as she returned to class, Maggie kept a careful eye on all of her things to avoid a repeat of the embarrassment. So absorbed in her duties, she was halfway to scratching at her arm before realizing it was a pen, not an itch, that was poking at her. An _actual_ poke.

" _Psst!_ " She froze. Slowly, her head turned. A blond was leaning over in his seat, searching the front of the room to determine their teacher's attention was elsewhere. Then he looked back at her, forcing her gaze to the legs of his chair, as he whispered, "Doth thee carryeth a highlighter I couldst b'rrow?""

Blink.

He pointed at her backpack.

 _...oh._ He wanted a highlighter. "U-um..." Swallowing, she ducked to rummage through her things and extended the writing utensil across the narrow aisle. He whispered equally flowery thanks, which she merely nodded to. When she peeked and found him focusing on his work, she pressed trembling fingers to a pounding heart as she wondered just how many scares she was going to have to deal with today.

She almost thought he was poking her again when something dragged across her wrist. But he was still hard at work. After a moment, she hid her arm behind her binder to pull back the sleeve, peering at the changes materializing before her eyes. The ink her unnamed soulmate had left was erased to be replaced with something new.

" _That was uncalled for. I'm sorry._ "

Glancing about, she penned a reply.

" _It's okay,_ " she told them, a direct echo of the other night with T. Their words were erased again, so she wet the corner of her shirt and did the same.

" _I was studying,_ " they explained. " _Others kept interrupting me._ "

" _I'm sorry_ —"

Immediately, it was crossed out, just as some of her words had been in the past.

" _Don't be._ "

Unsure how to respond to that, she wrote a short " _ok_ " before returning to the textbook she was supposed to be taking notes from. Some time passed.

Eventually, a slow tickle had her waiting to glance again, finding one last message from the person trailing up the inside of her arm.

" _Nice to make your acquaintance, M. You can call me L._ "

So polite, this one. _Well, when I'm not interrupting his studies,_ she amended. Smiling faintly, she felt a bit better when the class wrapped up and the classmate returned her highlighter. (She tried not to die of embarrassment when, all dramatic like, the boy declared her good deed loud enough to be heard down the hall.)

.

**Author's Note:**

>  **TO never BE CONTINUED!** (maybe)
> 
> For anyone curious, when I was writing this I'd decided that having only one potential soulmate was kind of silly, so I had multiple people have two options. This probably would've opened up some shenanigans if I had continued the idea lol. The position on the arms (over vs under) doesn't have any significance, it's only meant to keep each distinct from one another. The soulmate list:
> 
> Maggie: Takumi on top of arm, Leo on underside of arm  
> Takumi: Maggie on top of arm, Elise on underside of arm  
> Leo: Sakura on top of arm, Maggie on underside of arm  
> Elise: Odin on top of arm, Takumi on underside of arm  
> Sakura: Leo on top of arm, Saizo on underside of arm


End file.
